Chantier Naval GM, Roland Maxime Aka’a Ndi’i, dies!.

He is reported to have died at the Yaounde University Teaching Hospital, CHU. His corpse was immediately transferred to the mortuary of the Yaounde General Hospital, according to confirmed sources.

It is unclear what caused his demise but we learned he had been hospitalised at the health facility after taking ill. 

Roland Maxime Aka’a Ndi’i, is the second Chantier Naval DG to have died in office in recent memory. 

His predecessor, Alfred Nforgwei Mbeng, had died in 2020. Nforgwei’s death was linked then to the coronavirus. 

Appointed to office in June 2020, the now late Roland Maxime Aka’a, grew from the ranks.

A senior off-scale civil administrator, Aka’a had served as Deputy Director General of the company, before his appointment to the top role. 

He had previously worked at the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT, where he served as inspector.

At Chantier Naval, Roland Maxime Aka'a Ndi'i inherited a company in turmoil. His predecessor had failed to turn the company around.

The recovery plan prescribed by the government led to the dismissal of 270 Chantier Naval employees on economic grounds.

The company, which specialises in ship and platform repairs, has for years been facing enormous difficulties. 

The difficulties include lack of production tools, a payroll considered to be enormous, and outdated equipment and work materials.

Under Aka’a’s watch, workers of the industrial company repeatedly went on strike over salary issues. 

Since 2008 when Zaccheus Forjindam was fired from the post of General Manager of the company, things have never been the same again.

To date, Chantier Naval has had several General Managers including Antoine Bikoro Alo’o, South Korea’s Moo Kwi Ho, Bernard Bayiha, Seoung-Rok Yang, the late Alfred Forgwei Mbeng and Roland Maxime Aka’a Ndi’i, now of late.

The series of protests at Chantier Naval are, however, unending, making observers wonder, what has become of the institution, after Zaccheus Mungwe Forjindam.

From a turnover of 400 billion FCFA annually in the days of Forjindam, Chantier Naval is today struggling to get a 3 billion FCFA per year. In January 2018, the company terminated the employment contracts of 270 employees for financial reasons. 

A recovery plan rolled out by the Executive Board of Chantier Naval to be implemented between 2015 and 2017, has still not helped matters. 

The said plan includes a social component, which is aimed at reducing the number of employees for an adequacy with the normal level of activities of shipyards.

On March 16, 2021, workers of the company downed tools demanding 13 months of unpaid salaries and emoluments.

In November 2018, former temporary workers of the Shipyard Engineering Company, protested over years of unpaid arrears. They had taken the said protest to the esplanade of the Prime Minister’s Office in the nation’s capital.

Since the sacking of Forjindam, hardly has a year gone by without news of strike actions at Chantier Naval. 

It is either former workers or current workers staging protests demanding financial benefits.

In March 2012, 30, a group of 350 former workers of Chantier Naval, who were due to be paid separation bonuses after they were retrenched some years back, stormed the company in protest. 

Following a series of crisis meetings, the company agreed to pay the 350 former temporary workers some 525 million FCFA. The Guardian Post understands that over 1,200 former temporary workers had demanded retrenchment benefits, but the authorities said only 350 were qualified. 

The rest were disqualified during a pre-selection exercise, on grounds that their documents were not authentic. 

Most of them were recruited during the reign of the sacked and imprisoned former General Manager, Zacheus Fornjindam, currently serving a life jail term at the New Bell prison in Douala, for embezzling public funds.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3709 of Friday February 20, 2026